


A Revelation

by dianasilverman



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 19:36:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20711402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianasilverman/pseuds/dianasilverman
Summary: Surviving a shooting turns out to be only the beginning of a night that Strike and Robin will remember for a very long time.TW: Gun violence





	A Revelation

I’d walk through a blazing fire if I knew you were on the other side.  
Bob Dylan, “Nettie Moore”

Strike was no stranger to long and grueling days, but by the time he and Robin were shown to the police car that was to take them back to Denmark Street, this one was becoming exceptional. The previous day had ticked away agonizingly slowly into the next as the two detectives had been grilled about their client, their movements, and exactly how much they knew. Fortunately, the officers who had interrogated them had only shown interest in the events that had occurred prior to gunshots breaking out just down the alley from where the Land Rover had been parked. It was what had happened just after the shooting that was preoccupying Strike, but he had no desire to discuss it in an interrogation room, and neither, judging from her pinched expression, did Robin. She had avoided his eyes all throughout their interview.

Much like their hug on the stairs at her wedding, the kiss they had shared crouched in their seats had an unknown originator. Born of the knowledge that any second could be their last, it had come upon them suddenly, so that in one heartbeat Strike was shoving Robin down as a bullet grazed the mirror, and the next his hands were in her hair, her soft mouth urgent against his. It was desperate and breathtaking. It was also over as quickly as it had begun. With the sirens approaching, they had broken apart. Her eyes, large and dark, had met his. In the dappled illumination from a streetlight, he thought he made out a tear caught in one of her golden lashes. She had breathed in slowly, clearly about to say something, but before either could find air to speak, they had been subsumed by officialdom.

Now, she was staring out her window, with her hands folded carefully in her lap and her jaw set. He wondered if he was imagining how claustrophobic the car felt with them inside it.

“It would be nice, once, to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he hazarded.

“Mmm,” Robin agreed. Clearly, the tense silence would remain unbroken.

Having been deprived by the Met of the opportunity to discuss the kiss in its immediate aftermath, Strike doubted they were ever going to mention it again, given how wary Robin had seemed all night. He didn’t think she had looked at him directly since those charged moments in the Land Rover. True, her pretext for declining the offered ride to her flat in favor of accompanying him to Denmark Street had seemed flimsy, but maybe she really did need to retrieve her keys. Or worse, maybe she was waiting for a private opportunity to tell him off for his earlier impropriety. Robin was not one for public scenes.

Upon their arrival, Robin exited quickly, making her way around the car in time to wordlessly open Strike’s door just as he was mentally preparing himself for the difficulty of heaving himself from the low back seat. She never would have mentioned it, but she had noticed him struggling with his knee earlier in the day, a long week undoubtedly catching up with him.

“Thanks,” he said gruffly.

“I’ll just…”

“Yeh.”

This was exactly the kind of awkwardness she had reminded herself time and time again would inevitably come from giving into her feelings for Strike. There had been moments, insignificant on their own, but meaningful taken together, that had made her long for a relationship with him, had made it seem almost inevitable. But tonight had shown her it wouldn’t be that simple.

Hunting in her bag for the keys she’d forgotten were supposed to be her excuse for following Strike home, she went over the plan she’d hastily formulated on the way. They needed to have this out, and quickly. She was all too familiar with their history of leaving important things unsaid. As she unlocked the office door with a silent indication that Strike should go ahead of her, she resolved to sit him down, make a cup of tea, and talk through this like adults. Either he felt the same as she did, and the kiss had been a turning point, or he didn’t, and it had been a moment’s madness. No matter which option proved to be true, she would be cool and dispassionate.

“Robin…” Strike started, breaking her reverie. Instead of continuing up the stairs as she had expected, he was in the entryway, waiting for her. The door closed behind them with a muffled thump that was deafening in the small space.

“D’ya want a cup of tea?” she asked, wary of the way he was looking at her. There would be no rational discussion coming if she allowed herself to warm under the heat in his eyes.

“That would be great, thanks.” The normalcy of the statement contrasted against everything else that had happened that night got to her. She laughed a little hysterically.

“What’s so funny?”

“We almost died tonight, Cormoran, and here we are, going on as though nothing happened.” He rested one large hand against her upper arm, presumably with the intention of steadying her, but with the result that she felt more unstable than ever.

“This is how it went in the army,” he commented, “something awful would happen and we’d all just carry on because what else...well… you know.” She did know, as he was aware.

“Not everything that happened tonight was awful.”

“I had hoped so. I wasn’t sure.”

To his utter shock, she rolled her eyes at him.

“Don’t be modest. You’re perfectly aware- well-.” This was not going to plan. She had meant to be collected, but with him stroking her arm and looking down at her, she was anything but.

He stepped closer, his other hand cupping her cheek and drawing her gaze upward. When he spoke, his voice was husky.

“Do go on.”

Their second kiss was Robin’s fault. She had thrown her arms around him and was kissing him fiercely, hungrily, even. He pulled her closer, barely holding back a growl as he felt her curves against him. She was trembling, though whether from pleasure or adrenaline, he didn’t know. They stumbled back so that she was against the outside door, and he was all but holding her up, one hand squeezing the back of her thigh. She liked that, if the way she sighed into his hair was any indication. On her tiptoes, she was the perfect height for him to kiss her neck.

“Fuck, Cormoran-” She pushed him away gently, her cursing all breathy and Yorkshire.

He abandoned nibbling at her collarbone and let her down quickly, if regretfully.

“Did I- shit, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s just that we’re just never going to have the conversation we need if we carry on like this.”

Despite himself, he laughed. She took in a shaky breath, clearly steeling herself. Then, she surprised him again by taking his hand and pulling him up the metal staircase.

“C’mon then”, she urged him over one shoulder, in the same tone someone might use on a child who had just fallen off a pony. He followed her, too startled and smitten to remember all the reasons why this was a terrible idea.

Three flights of stairs and the hasty removal of Strike’s prosthesis later, Robin was pushing him down onto his bed. _This one’s his fault_, she thought smugly as their lips met. His tongue traced the curve of her smile, and she melted against him, leaving only enough room for her fingers to work at the buttons on his shirt. She straddled him, and his hands found the backs of her thighs, grinding her hips against him in a way that made them both catch their breath. Her hands guided his higher, letting him cup her arse. He was hard underneath her.

“Are you sure?,” he broke their kiss to ask.

“Yes”, she breathed.

With his shirt unbuttoned, she pulled back to admire him, tugging the soft tee she had worn for the stakeout over her head. Any shyness she might have felt was gone as she took him in, so large and masculine, looking up at her with unapologetic lust in his dark eyes. She leaned down to kiss him again. Growling, he flipped her over so she was underneath him. His callused hands were rough on her breasts as he cupped them, but the kisses that followed were soft. When his mouth found her one of her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra, she had had enough and reached behind her to take it off. He sucked at her in earnest then, causing her back to arch and her nails to dig into the hard muscles of his back. Fully on top of her, he was wonderfully solid, his chest hair tickling her breasts as he bit her bottom lip. She reached between them to undo his belt buckle. His belly was soft, but the rest of him-

_Fuck. No, no, no! _Robin thought, _not here, not now. It’s Cormoran, you want this, you want him. This was your idea._

But it was too late. His size, his hardness, the weight of him, had all apparently been too much. She knew she wasn’t supposed to fight the panic, but she did anyway. For a moment, it seemed like desire might win out over fear, but it was no use. The last thing she registered before the crackling darkness took her was Strike pushing off her, asking if she was all right.

She came back to herself sitting on the edge of his bed, arms wrapped tightly around her naked chest. Someone- Strike, she realized- had draped a tatty old blanket over her shoulders, protecting her modesty. He was sitting in one of the cheap chairs from his kitchenette, which he had dragged over to face her. The look on his face was achingly gentle. She wanted to cry.

“God, Cormoran, I’m so, so sorry. I never meant, never should have. I wanted to though, I really, really wanted, more than I’ve ever wanted…” She was rambling, she knew, but she was too stricken for coherence.

He took the hand that had come up to swipe roughly at her tears, long fingers enveloping her own.

“Hey. Hey, look at me, Robin.” His other hand stroked her jaw tenderly. She did as she was told, meekly. He was about to fire her, she knew it. The fact that he would be kind about it didn’t change the fact that she was reckless and broken, and had just ruined everything they had without even having the courage to see what she had started through.

“Whatever you need, just say it. If you want to pretend that never happened, if you want to tell me off. Whatever. I’ll do it.” His voice was soft, his eyes serious.

She pulled him into a clumsy hug. Her tears wet the shirt she hadn’t realized he’d put on. Like every other bad idea she’d had that night, she didn’t know if it was adrenaline, or passion, or relief that drove her to whisper a confession into his ear.

“I love you, too, Robin,” he said to her mussed red-gold hair.

“Really?”, she asked, drawing back.

“Yeh. Since… well, for a long time.”

“Me too”, she admitted.

They let that hang there for a minute, both quietly elated.

Strike broke the silence with a “Well.”

“You said whatever-”

“Of course.” She was about to ask for time, he knew, as surely as he knew that he would grant it. Years, months, whatever it took for her to be ready, he would wait.

“I could use a jumper. It’s cold up here.” She gestured weakly at her lovely white torso, with a blush and the beginning of a grin.

A soft burgundy half-zip was produced, along with a pair of sweatpants.

“Tea?,” Strike asked, already busying himself with the kettle, giving her privacy to change.

“Sure.”

The jumper’s sleeves had to be rolled up twice so she could use her hands, but she was warmer almost immediately. She liked watching Strike’s back as he searched his cabinets for chipped mugs and Betty’s Blend. He had a crutch under one arm, but he didn’t seem to mind her seeing him without his leg. The tea tin looked comically small and frilly in his hands. After everything that had happened that night, the mundane routine was exactly what she needed. Soon, the frantic racing of her heart had slowed. By the time Strike pressed a steaming mug into her hands, her eyelids were heavy.

“Can I stay?”

In answer, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“At least tomorrow’s- today's- Saturday”, he said, clearly just as tired as she was.

“What would you say to sleeping till three, then heading straight to the Tottenham?”

“Are you asking me on a date, Ellacott?,” he teased. She laughed despite herself.

“So is that a yes?”

“Yes.” He kissed the top of her head, and was about to kiss her cheek when she leaned up to meet him. She tasted like tea and salt.

“We should probably talk about some things,” she said before kissing him again.

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

That was good enough for her. The wonder of it all- that he loved her, that she could kiss him whenever she wanted- was too sweet to set aside in exchange for a hard conversation. Besides, she exhausted. She rested her head on his shoulder, looking down to where their hands had twined together.

“Get in bed,” she whispered in his ear.

Any other night, they might have needed to find how they fit in the tiny bed together, shifting or rolling over to get comfortable. Not tonight. As soon as she settled back in bed, Robin could feel all the tension she'd held in all day leaving her. By the time Strike's arm wrapped around her shoulder, her eyes had closed and she was asleep.

Strike woke to the feeling, unusual but not unpleasant, of someone petting him. There was a warm, solid body curled around his, and fingers in his hair. Robin, he realised elatedly. At some point in the night, he had rolled over onto his side and she had draped herself over him. Now there was midday sun streaming through the windows, and she was nuzzling at his neck. He closed his eyes, savoring the moment.

She bit his ear.

“I know you’re awake, you’ve stopped snoring.”

One of her hands slipped under the hem of his shirt. He made a concerted effort to think of nothing but the varieties of squash Uncle Ted grew every year in his garden in Cornwall. After last night, he was determined to leave their pace entirely up to her.

“S’ too early,” he protested.

“It’s one in the afternoon,” she admonished gently. She had thrown a long leg over him. The squash were getting harder to focus on.

“_Saturday_ afternoon.”

“Cormoran, I love you, but please don’t be a grumpy bastard just this once.”

That got his attention, and he turned to look at her sleepily. She was naked. In the afternoon sun, her tousled hair and freckled skin seemed to glow. Better yet, she was smiling shyly at him, a hint of blush colouring her cheeks.

“Hey,” he breathed stupidly.

She kissed him, gently at first and then decidedly not gently. He rested a hand on the safest place he could find, which turned out to be the side of her hip. She shivered at his touch. Then, she wrapped her leg over him again, deliberately closing the space between them so that their hips pressed together. He knew that she could feel how hard he was then, but she didn’t pull away, only moved his hand to the wetness between her legs. He stroked her gently at first, testing to see what made her sigh, what made her arch into him. His other hand tangled in her hair, pulling it aside so he could kiss her neck and tease her breasts. The rhythm of his thumb against her clit became more insistent, until she tensed, clinging to him as her orgasm took her.

He held her as she relaxed. When she pulled back to look at him, her expression was faintly astonished. Suddenly, he felt very smug.

“Last night didn’t exactly go smoothly,” she said, in what he thought was a gross understatement, “but I thought, if you want, we could try again, differently this time.”

“There’s no rush.”

“I know. I just don’t want to let… all of that… get in the way. Please” She punctuated the statement with a kiss.

With rest and daylight on their side, they were able to take things slowly and sweetly. She kissed him and kissed him, only pulling away to tug his shirt over his head. He sat up in bed, positioning her in his lap. The look on her face when she pulled down his boxers made him smug again, a feeling that was abandoned entirely as she took him in her hands to put on a condom. She settled over him with a determined expression he knew all too well. It took a repositioning of her hips and a shaky breath, but soon he was inside her. She was deliberate at first, but her composure slipped as he kissed her, cupping her breasts and sliding his tongue against hers. One of his hands moved in between them to stroke her as she rode him, building a rhythm. The other grabbed her arse, urging her on. They were pressed so close that he could feel the muscles in her shoulders tense as she climaxed. He followed soon after, cursing colourfully.

After, they stayed entwined, Strike tracing lazy patterns across Robin’s back as their breathing slowed. She dozed contentedly in his embrace. Her wedding was an objectively strange thing to be thinking about, but his mind returned to their hug on the stairs, to the way she had fit in his arms, as if she had always been there, as though he had missed her without knowing it. That feeling was back, only far better this time around.

Sometime later, she stirred. He could feel her stomach growl, and remembered that neither of them had eaten anything since the biscuits she’d brought along for the stakeout. That seemed like lifetimes ago, despite the fact that it had been less than twenty four hours. So much had changed…

“So, pub?,” he asked.

“Pub,” she agreed with a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> I've often thought that narrowly escaping a dangerous situation is one of the most likely ways for these two to get together, which is where the shooting concept came from. Admittedly, I fell in love with this idea before I fully thought it through. As it turns out, being caught in the middle of a gun fight is fairly unlikely in London, at least compared to cities in the US, but I decided to write this anyway, and just hope that it doesn't come off in a way I didn't intend.


End file.
